Environmental Design Shapes Perceptual-motor Exploration, Learning, and Transfer in Climbing

Entropy as a Window Into Behavioral Phase Transitions: Unveiling Contextual Dynamics in Affordance-Based Reaching

Prior work has demonstrated the presence of hysteresis effects in the control of affordance-guided behavior, in that behavioral transitions around a critical action boundary vary with directions of change in said action boundary. To date, research on this topic has overlooked the influence of the global context on these phenomena. We employ an affordance-based reaching task, whereby participants were asked to move a target to a goal by passing through one of two apertures (size variable or size constant). It was found that the direction of change in the size of the variable aperture influenced the point of behavioral transitions, and this effect interacted with the location of a given goal. In addition, we considered fluctuations in the entropy of participants' reach trajectories as a window into the nature of the behavioral phase transitions. Differences in the structure of entropy were found depending on the direction of change in the size variable aperture. These results are discussed in light of a dynamical systems approach, and recommendations for future work are made.

Applying the constraints-led approach to facilitate exploratory learning of the volleyball serve

Exploration is an important feature for successfully learning motor skills. However, game rules such as one attempt to serve in volleyball could discourage exploration due to an individual's fear of making a mistake and forfeiting a point. The constraints-led approach is a coaching methodology that encourages exploration by selectively manipulating task constraints such as rules. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine whether the addition of the task constraint of a second serve would encourage volleyball players to use their first serve to explore their action capabilities. Forty male high school students competed in two volleyball games; a regulation (single serve) game and a modified (2-serve) game. Participants reported that having a second chance at serving allowed them to feel more confident and relaxed which facilitated the exploration of their serving capability. In the 2-serve game, participants attempted a more powerful (M = 60.3 km/hr), and complex (M = 44.5% jump topspin serves) first serve, compared to the regulation game (M = 55.6 km/hr; M = 25.2% jump topspin serves). Findings suggest that to facilitate learning of motor skills, it is important to manipulate the practice environment using task constraints to address the factors that restrict exploration.

Promoting Exploration During Learning: Effect of Imposed and Self-Controlled Practice Schedules on Learners' Behavioral Flexibility

Purpose: Enriching learners' motor repertoires in a complex pluri-articular task, such as climbing, could help learners' adaptation to various sets of task constraints. Promoting exploration with variable practice conditions is one solution recurrently proposed. However, recent studies have shown that a too elevated exploration-exploitation ratio during practice could impair learning. A proposed solution is to give learners some control over their practice schedule, which appeared to better respect the individual learning dynamic in comparison to the usual experimenter-imposed practice schedule. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate whether giving learners the possibility of controlling when to confront to new climbing routes would result in greater flexibility in their motor repertoire compared to giving them an imposed schedule of climbing routes or a constant practice condition. Method: Participants were assigned to either a constant practice group (CPG), an imposed-variability group (IVG) or a self-controlled variability group (SVG) to carry out a climbing task. To assess participants' behavioral flexibility, a scanning procedure was conceived by manipulating the route design and the instructions. Results: Participants showed an initial lack of flexibility as they strongly relied on a single coordination pattern. At posttest and retention, the three groups more frequently used a new hand coordination pattern and more often showed coordination patterns associated with high climbing fluency. Results suggest that the individualized rate of exploration in the self-controlled practice condition may have helped the learners improve their flexibility, whereas forcing exploration did not seem more beneficial than constant practice in this complex pluri-articular task.

Assessment of fluency dynamics in climbing

The aim of this study was to investigate the hold-by-hold climbing fluency dynamics by using an instrumented holds system that measured the contact time on each hold. Forty-four competitive climbers have been analysed in a regional lead climbing competition during a route composed of 41 instrumented holds on 11 m high artificial climbing wall and with a grade of difficulty 6b on the French scale (IRCRA reported scale: 13). After removing 10 climbers who fell before the top of the route, the 34 remaining climbers who completed the route were clustered according to their total contact time on each hold. The hierarchical cluster analysis distinguished four profiles of climbing fluency dynamics, on the basis of six 'crux' points, showing that the fastest climbers at the crux points were those with the shortest climbing time. This new instrumented-holds system appeared very innovative as it provides an instantaneous feedback to coaches regarding inter-limbs fluency and subsequent motor organisations.

Exploring in a climbing task during a learning protocol: a complex sense-making process

In perceptual-motor learning, constant and variable practice conditions have been found to have differential effects on learners' exploratory activity and their ability to transfer their skills to novel environments. However, how learners make sense of these practice conditions during practice remains unclear. This study aimed to analyse learners' experiences of different practice conditions during a climbing learning protocol and to examine how these experiences might further inform learners' exploratory activity. Twelve participants assigned to either 'Constant practice', 'Imposed Novelty', or 'Chosen novelty' groups climbed a 'Control route' (i.e. a route common to all groups) and a 'transfer route' (i.e. a new route) before and after a ten session learning protocol. Descriptions of learners' experiences during previews and climbs were collected using self-confrontation interviews. After identifying general dimensions via a thematic analysis, a hierarchical cluster analysis on these general dimensions allowed the identification of phenomenological clusters (PhC). The distribution of these PhCs was compared between the first and last learning sessions, the control and transfer routes, and the practice condition groups. We identified seven PhCs reflecting learners' meaningful exploratory activity during the previews and climbs. Significant differences in the distribution of these PhCs were found between (i) the first and the last session, (ii) the control and the transfer route and (iii) the Chosen-novelty group and the other two practice groups. These results suggest that exploration is part of a complex sense-making process linked to practice conditions, which can be described by a joint analysis of the intentions, perceptions and actions.

Narrowing the coordination solution space during motor learning standardizes individual patterns of search strategy but diversifies learning rates

Constraints on practice can benefit motor learning by guiding the learner towards efficient coordination patterns, but can also narrow the potential solution space of coordination and control. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether narrowing the solution space through more restrictive task constraints limits the expression of potential exploratory behaviours during the learning process, identified using Drifting Markov Models. In a breaststroke swimming task, the change in interlimb coordination of 7 learners practicing for 16 lessons over 2 months was analysed to quantify motor exploration and identify periods of metastable regimes of coordination. Results showed that the observed exploratory dynamics were highly individual both in terms of range of exploration and in the patterns of search. The more restrictive task constraints did not impair the amount of exploration but rather channelled the exploration around a few selected patterns. In addition, restraining the nature of the exploratory process increased the inter-individual differences of the learning rate. Although manipulating the task constraints during learning can help learners to escape from the behavioural consequences of their intrinsic dynamics, maintaining a broad solution space for a diversity of coordination patterns to emerge was key to fostering effective exploration of individual coordination solutions.

Visual Perception in Expert Athletes: The Case of Rock Climbers

The purpose of the present study was to examine the visual perception system in expert climbers through a psychophysical optical test in a cross-sectional study. Twenty-seven male participants with an International Rock Climbing Research Association (IRCRA) best on-sight lead skill level ranging between 18 and 27 and a best red-point level ranging between 18 and 29 completed a series of psychophysical optic tests assessing their visual field, visual acuity, and contrast sensitivity. Climbers were divided by their best red-pointed lead level, and, following IRCRA recommendations, two groups were created: an advanced group (IRCRA redpoint level between 18 and 23), and an elite-high elite group (IRCRA redpoint level between 24 and 29). The elite group presented more training days per week (5.25 ± 1.28), best on-sighted lead level (24.63 ± 1.92 IRCRA), and best red-pointed lead level (26.63 ± 2.56 IRCRA) than the advanced group (3.67 ± 0.91 training days per week, 19.50 ± 1.04 IRCRA on-sighted level and 20.67 ± 1.57 IRCRA red-pointed level). Better visual perception outputs were produced by the group of elite climbers in visual field tests; no differences were observed between the two groups for visual acuity and contrast sensitivity tests. Overall, findings indicate that best climbers performed better at the visual perception tasks that tested their visual field. Such better perception from best climbers is discussed given (1) the greater time they spend coercing the visual system during practicing climbing and (2) the specific complexity of the stimuli as they are confronted to harder routes where holds are less perceptible and the time to find best hold sequences is constrained.

An Ecological Dynamics Approach to Understanding Human-Environment Interactions in the Adventure Sport Context—Implications for Research and Practice

The last few decades have witnessed a surge of interest in adventure sports, and has led to an emerging research focus on these activities. However, recent conceptual analyses and scientific reviews have highlighted a major, fundamental question that remains unresolved: what constitutes an adventure sport. Despite several proposals for definitions, the field still seems to lack a shared conceptualization. This deficit may be a serious limitation for research and practice, restricting the development of a more nuanced theoretical explanation of participation and practical implications within and across adventure sports. In this article, we address another crucial question, how can adventure sports be better understood for research and practice? We briefly summarize previous definitions to address evident confusion and a lack of conceptual clarity in the discourse. Alternatively, we propose how an ecological perspective of human behaviors, such as interactions with the environment, may provide an appropriate conceptualization to guide and enhance future research and practice, using examples from activities such as freeride skiing/snowboarding, white-water kayaking, climbing, mountaineering and the fields of sport science, psychology and avalanche research and education. We draw on ecological dynamics as a transdisciplinary approach to discuss how this holistic framework presents a more detailed, nuanced, and precise understanding of adventure sports.

The Ecological Dynamics Framework: An Innovative Approach to Performance in Extreme Environments: A Narrative Review

(1) Background: Uncertainty in extreme sports performance environments, such as climbing, provides considerable psycho-emotional and physiological demands, notably due to the many different environments in which climbing can be performed. This variety of environments, conditions of practice and engagement would challenge the acquisition of perceptual-motor skills; (2) Methods: To better understand how perceptual-motor skills are controlled and acquired in climbing, we proposed a narrative review anchored in the ecological dynamics theoretical framework and showed how this theoretical framework would support a nonlinear pedagogy to skill acquisition and to design safe learning and training situations that are representative of extreme performance contexts; (3) Results: We explained three theoretical pillars and we provide examples for design intervention following nonlinear pedagogy, notably (i) to set a constraint-led approach (in particular task constraint), (ii) to implement conditions of practice (constant vs. variable, imposed vs. self-controlled), (iii) to promote adaptive and creative behavioral variability during practice; (4) Conclusions: The challenge for the extreme sport practitioner is how to set up conditions of practice for efficient exploration in a manner that manages the dangers of performing in uncertain environments. Representing uncertainty within the relative safety of indoor settings may be one approach for preparing climbers for performance in extreme environments.

The influence of skill and task complexity on perception of nested affordances

This study investigated how skill level and task complexity influence the calibration of perception–action and particularly how close an individual acts relative to his or her maximal action capabilities. Complexity was manipulated between two (Touch, Grasp) and more than two (Removing, Moving Up) nested affordance conditions. For all conditions, we examined whether advanced climbers had greater maximal action capabilities than intermediate climbers or whether they better scaled their action (i.e., acted nearer to their maximal action capabilities) or both. Eleven intermediate and 11 advanced male climbers were first asked to estimate the maximum distance that they could reach a climbing hold. The hold was moved along a slide and fixed once requested by the participant; subsequently, the distance to the starting hold was measured. After each estimation, the participant was required to execute the climbing action. After four estimation-action trials in each of the four conditions, the maximal action capability (i.e., actual maximal reaching distance) was determined. Advanced climbers demonstrated greater actual maximal reaching distances than intermediate climbers for all conditions, but they only estimated greater maximal reaching distances for the more complex conditions, which featured more than two nested affordances. When estimated maximal reaching distances were scaled to actual maximal reaching distances, advanced climbers did not differ from intermediate climbers for any condition, and there were no differences between conditions. Our findings indicate that expertise was a function of greater action capabilities, but not due to the accuracy of calibration.

Metastable attunement and real-life skilled behavior

In everyday situations, and particularly in some sport and working contexts, humans face an inherently unpredictable and uncertain environment. All sorts of unpredictable and unexpected things happen but typically people are able to skillfully adapt. In this paper, we address two key questions in cognitive science. First, how is an agent able to bring its previously learned skill to bear on a novel situation? Second, how can an agent be both sensitive to the particularity of a given situation, while remaining flexibly poised for many other possibilities for action? We will argue that both the sensitivity to novel situations and the sensitivity to a multiplicity of action possibilities are enabled by the property of skilled agency that we will call metastable attunement. We characterize a skilled agent's flexible interactions with a dynamically changing environment in terms of metastable dynamics in agent-environment systems. What we find in metastability is the realization of two competing tendencies: the tendency of the agent to express their intrinsic dynamics and the tendency to search for new possibilities. Metastably attuned agents are ready to engage with a multiplicity of affordances, allowing for a balance between stability and flexibility. On the one hand, agents are able to exploit affordances they are attuned to, while at the same time being ready to flexibly explore for other affordances. Metastable attunement allows agents to smoothly transition between these possible configurations so as to adapt their behaviour to what the particular situation requires. We go on to describe the role metastability plays in learning of new skills, and in skilful behaviour more generally. Finally, drawing upon work in art, architecture and sports science, we develop a number of perspectives on how to investigate metastable attunement in real life situations.

Perceptual-motor skill transfer: Multidimensionality and specificity of both general and specific transfers

This paper aims to investigate perceptual-motor skill transfer, both through the specific as well as the general aspect of skill transfer. Specifically, we examined differences in skill transfer that occurred between participants who are skilled in practicing a perceptual motor activity involving striking with an implement and participants who are skilled in their own sports but are novice to striking task (i.e., batting an immobile ball). Skill transfer was assessed through the effect of practicing a new, novel task on the performance (ball velocity), intrinsic behavior (elbow and shoulder kinematic) as well as on the impetus for exploratory behavior (variability of elbow and shoulder kinematics) in the two groups of participants (n = 8 for each group), with reference to another group of expert participants (n = 8) for this batting task. Results showed that positive skill transfer was present and was multidimensional in the group of participants who have experience in using an implement in striking tasks. In addition, both specific transfer as well as general transfer were dependent on the task dynamics. More precisely, positive transfer was observed both through a sharing of similar movement patterns, an impetus for exploration and a direct transfer of performance in a novel task between groups who have experience in using an implement in striking tasks.

Exploring to learn and learning to explore

In respect to ecological psychology processes of attunement and calibration, this critical review focusses on how exploratory behaviors may contribute to skilled perception and action, with particular attention to sport. Based on the theoretical insights of Gibson (The senses considered as perceptual systems, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1966) and Reed (Encountering the world: Toward an ecological psychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 1996), exploratory and performatory actions have been differentiated in numerous experiments to study the perception of opportunities of action. The distinction between exploratory and performatory actions has informed the study of infant behavior in developmental psychology. In the current article, we highlight limitations with this distinction in the study of sports performers. We propose that a dynamic view of exploratory behavior would reveal how individuals develop exploratory activity that generates information about the fit between environmental properties and action capabilities. In this aim, practitioners should: (1) give learners the opportunity to safely develop exploratory behaviors even when they act outside their action boundary; and (2) guide learners to search for more reliable information to develop exploratory behaviors that would enhance the transfer of skills to various performance contexts.

Can Exergames Be Improved to Better Enhance Behavioral Adaptability in Older Adults? An Ecological Dynamics Perspective

Finding effective training solutions to attenuate the alterations of behavior and cognition in the growing number of older adults is an important challenge for Science and Society. By offering 3D computer-simulated environments to combine perceptual-motor and cognitive exercise, exergames are promising in this respect. However, a careful analysis of meta-analytic reviews suggests that they failed to be more effective than conventional motor-cognitive training. We analyzed the reasons for this situation, and we proposed new directions to design new, conceptually grounded, exergames. Consistent with the evolutionary neuroscience approach, we contend that new solutions should better combine high level of metabolic activity with (neuro)muscular, physical, perceptual-motor, and cognitive stimulations. According to the Ecological Dynamics rationale, we assume that new exergames should act at the agent-environment scale to allow individuals to explore, discover, and adapt to immersive and informationally rich environments that should include cognitively challenging tasks, while being representative of daily living situations.

Differences in anchoring strategy underlie differences in coordination in novice jugglers

The learning process of ball juggling is characterized by considerable individual differences in acquired coordination patterns. Previous research has shown that the coordination patterns observed in novice jugglers can be roughly divided into two classes: the high ratio pattern, in which the ball is held for a relatively long time, and the low ratio pattern, in which the ball is held for a relatively short time. To account for these differences in coordination patterns, we examined the anchoring strategies employed by novice jugglers for controlling the juggling movements. Analyses of the correlation between coordination patterns and selected spatiotemporal variabilities revealed that the coordination patterns with a high dwell ratio had lower temporal variability than patterns with a low dwell ratio, which in turn had lower variability of spatial variables than patterns with a high dwell ratio. These findings indicate that individual differences in the coordination patterns adopted by novice jugglers, and hence their learning paths, result from differences in the control strategies employed.

Learning and transfer of perceptual-motor skill: Relationship with gaze and behavioral exploration

Visual and haptic exploration were shown to be central modes of exploration in the development of locomotion. However, it is unclear how learning affects these modes of exploration in locomotor task such as climbing. The first aim of this study was to investigate the modifications of learners' exploratory activity during the acquisition of a perceptual-motor skill. The second aim was to determine to what extent the acquired perceptual-motor skill and the learners' exploratory activity were transferred to environments presenting novel properties. Seven participants attended 10 learning sessions on wall climbing. The effects of practice were assessed during pretest, posttest, and retention tests, each composed of four climbing routes: the route climbed during the learning sessions and three transfer routes. The transfer routes were designed by manipulating either the distance between handholds, the orientation of the handholds or the handholds shape. The results showed that the number of exploratory hand movements and fixations decreased with practice on the learning route. A visual entropy measure suggested that the gaze path in this route became more goal-directed on posttest, but some search was necessary on the retention test. The number of exploratory movements also decreased on the three transfer routes following practice, whereas the number of fixations was higher than on the learning route, suggesting that, with learning, participants relied more on exploration from a distance to adapt to the new properties of the transfer routes. Analyses of the individual performances and behaviors showed differences in the development of skilled exploratory activity.

3D Visualization of Body Motion in Speed Climbing

Speed climbing involves an optimization of the velocity of the ascent and the trajectory path during performance. Consequently, any amount of energy spent in the two other directions than vertical, namely the lateral direction and the direction perpendicular to the wall plane, is a potential loss of performance. To assess this principle, we present a study on 3D motion analysis and its 3D visualization for a subject during a speed climbing performance. The fundamentals of geometrical measurement in 3D require to integrate multiple 2D cues, at least two, in order to extract 3D information. First results with two drones following an athlete's ascent show that a 3D velocity profile can be provided from the tracking of a marker on the harness, pointing critical phases in the ascent where the vertical speed is not dominant any more. We further investigate 3D motion of full body using markerless video-based tracking. Our approach is based on a full body 3D avatar model of the climber, represented as a 3D mesh. This model and its deformation are learned in a laboratory studio. The learning needs to be done only once. Result is a manifold embedding of the 3D mesh and its deformations, which can be used afterwards to perform registration onto video of performance of speed climbing. The results of the tracking is an inference of the 3D mesh aligned onto videos of speed climbing performance. From this 3D mesh, we deduce an estimation of the center of mass (COM). We show that this estimation from 3D mesh differs from the usual approximation of the COM as a marker on the harness. In particular, the 3D mesh COM takes into account the whole body movement such as the influence of the limbs which is not detected by a marker on the harness.

Dynamics of Experience in a Learning Protocol: A Case Study in Climbing

Many of the studies on motor learning have investigated the dynamics of learning behaviors and shown that the learning process is non-linear, self-organized, and situated. Aligned with this research trend, studies within the enactive paradigm focus on learners’ lived experience to understand how it shapes their intentions, actions, and perceptions. Thus, a joint analysis of experiential and behavioral assessments might help to explain the dynamics of learning (e.g., the transition between stable states). The aim of this case study was to analyze the dynamics of a beginner climber’s lived experience as his performance progressed (i.e., climbing fluency) during a learning protocol. The protocol comprised 10 climbing sessions over 5 weeks. During the sessions, the climber had to climb a “control route” (CR) (i.e., a route that never changed) and “variants” (i.e., novel routes, in which the spatial layout of the holds was modified). Phenomenological data were collected with self-confrontation interviews after each session. From the verbalizations, a thematic analysis of the climber’s intentions, actions, and perceptions was performed to detect the general dimensions of his experience. The behavioral data (the climber’s performance) were assessed using four indicators of climbing fluency: climbing time (CT), immobility ratio (IR), geometric index of entropy (GIE) of the hip trajectory, and the jerk. Our results highlighted the dynamics of the climber’s lived experience and performances in the unchanged and novel environments. The dynamics on the CR were characterized by four crucial episodes and the dynamics on the variants, by four ways of experiencing novelty. Our results are discussed around three points: (i) the climber’s definition of his enacted fluency in terms of intentions, actions, and perceptions; (ii) how the definition was identified through a dynamic phenomenological synthesis; and (iii) three effects that characterize the dynamics: challenge, metaphor, and a refinement in perceptions.

The influence of attractor stability of intrinsic coordination patterns on the adaptation to new constraints

In most human movement tasks, the same goal can be achieved by a diversity of coordination patterns. For instance, when learning to juggle, individuals adopt their own unique coordination patterns in the early stages of acquiring the fundamental skills of juggling. These individual differences in the learning paths lead to differences in adaptability to new constraints. However, the reason for these differences in adaptability is still unknown. To address this problem, we quantified these differences in terms of attractor stability of the coordination patterns of expert jugglers using Recurrence Quantification Analysis. Furthermore, we quantified the attractor stability of intermediate jugglers and examined adaptability in a sensorimotor synchronization task. We found differences in attractor stability among coordination patterns of expert jugglers, as well as a difference in attractor stability between intrinsic coordination patterns of intermediate jugglers. Whereas, almost no significant direct correlation between attractor stability and adaptability of intermediate jugglers was found, suggesting a difference in both attractor stability and adaptability between intrinsic coordination patterns such that the difference in attractor stability might affect adaptability to new constraints. We submit that the learning path selected by each learner in the early stages of learning plays an important role in the subsequent development of expertise.

Affordance Realization in Climbing: Learning and Transfer

The aim of this study was to investigate how the affordances of an indoor climbing wall changed for intermediate climbers following a period of practice during which hold orientation was manipulated within a learning and transfer protocol. The learning protocol consisted of four sessions, in which eight climbers randomly ascended three different routes of fixed absolute difficulty (5c on the French scale), as fluently as possible. All three routes were 10.3 m in height and composed of 20 hand-holds at the same locations on an artificial climbing wall; only hold orientations were altered: (i) a horizontal-edge route (H) was designed to afford horizontal hold grasping, (ii) a vertical-edge route (V) afforded vertical hold grasping, and (iii), a double-edge route (D) was designed to afford both horizontal and vertical hold grasping. Five inertial measurement units (IMU) (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer) were attached to the hip, feet and forearms to analyze the vertical acceleration and direction (3D unitary vector) of each limb and hip in ambient space during the entire ascent. Segmentation and classification processes supported detection of movement and stationary phases for each IMU. Depending on whether limbs and/or hip were moving, a decision tree distinguished four states of behavior: stationary (absence of limb and hip motion), hold exploration (absence of hip motion but at least one limb in motion), hip movement (hip in motion but absence of limb motion) and global motion (hip in motion and at least one limb in motion). Results showed that with practice, the learners decreased the relative duration of hold exploration, suggesting that they improved affordance perception of hold grasp-ability. The number of performatory movements also decreased as performance increased during learning sessions, confirming that participants' climbing efficacy improved as a function of practice. Last, the results were more marked for the H route, while the D route led to longer relative stationary duration and a shorter relative duration of performatory states. Together, these findings emphasized the benefit of manipulating task constraints to promote safe exploration during learning, which is particularly relevant in extreme sports involving climbing tasks.

Behavioral Repertoire Influences the Rate and Nature of Learning in Climbing: Implications for Individualized Learning Design in Preparation for Extreme Sports Participation

Extreme climbing where participants perform while knowing that a simple mistake could result in death requires a skill set normally acquired in non-extreme environments. In the ecological dynamics approach to perception and action, skill acquisition involves a process where the existing repertoire of behavioral capabilities (or coordination repertoire) of a learner are destabilized and re-organized through practice—this process can expand the individuals affordance boundaries allowing the individual to explore new environments. Change in coordination repertoire has been observed in bi-manual coordination and postural regulation tasks, where individuals begin practice using one mode of coordination before transitioning to another, more effective, coordination mode during practice. However, individuals may also improve through practice without qualitatively reorganizing movement system components—they do not find a new mode of coordination. To explain these individual differences during learning (i.e., whether or not a new action is discovered), a key candidate is the existing coordination repertoire present prior to practice. In this study, the learning dynamics of body configuration patterns organized with respect to an indoor climbing surface were observed and the existing repertoire of coordination evaluated prior to and after practice. Specifically, performance outcomes and movement patterns of eight beginners were observed across 42 trials of practice over a 7-week period. A pre- and post-test scanning procedure was used to determine existing patterns of movement coordination and the emergence of new movement patterns after the practice period. Data suggested the presence of different learning dynamics by examining trial-to-trial performance in terms of jerk (an indicator of climbing fluency), at the individual level of analysis. The different learning dynamics (identified qualitatively) included: continuous improvement, sudden improvement, and no improvement. Individuals showing sudden improvement appeared to develop a new movement pattern of coordination in terms of their capability to climb using new body-wall orientations, whereas those showing continuous improvement did not, they simply improved performance. The individual who did not improve in terms of jerk, improved in terms of distance climbed. We discuss implications for determining and predicting how individual differences can shape learning dynamics and interact with metastable learning design.

The influence of hold regularity on perceptual-motor behaviour in indoor climbing

Climbers often train on indoor climbing walls, which are modifiable to simulate features of outdoor climbing environments at different levels of difficulty. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of regularity of climbing holds on emergent perceptual-motor behaviours. Skilled climbers performed six repetitions of two topographically similar routes on an indoor climbing wall. One route was composed of 18 different types of hand holds (irregular route), whereas the other route had only two types of hand holds (regular route). Preview and climbing durations, as well as visual search behaviours, were recorded. Participants rated the regular route as more difficult to climb, requiring greater perceived effort to complete. The time spent previewing, and then climbing the routes, was reduced on average by 12% and 16%, respectively in the irregular route compared to the regular route. There were more fixations made when climbing the regular route (281 vs. 222 fixations per trial). It seems the climbers were more careful and thorough in their gaze behaviours with the regular route because of the additional technical demands it presented, whereas the irregular route afforded a more superficial visual exploration with use of more frequent saccades between holds. The findings suggest how irregularity in the environment is exploited by skilled climbers, apparently making the practice context easier to perceive and act in.

Creative Motor Actions As Emerging from Movement Variability

In cognitive science, creative ideas are defined as original and feasible solutions in response to problems. A common proposal is that creative ideas are generated across dedicated cognitive pathways. Only after creative ideas have emerged, they can be enacted to solve the problem. We present an alternative viewpoint, based upon the dynamic systems approach to perception and action, that creative solutions emerge in the act rather than before. Creative actions, thus, are as much a product of individual constraints as they are of the task and environment constraints. Accordingly, we understand creative motor actions as functional movement patterns that are new to the individual and/or group and adapted to satisfy the constraints on the motor problem at hand. We argue that creative motor actions are promoted by practice interventions that promote exploration by manipulating constraints. Exploration enhances variability of functional movement patterns in terms of either coordination or control solutions. At both levels, creative motor actions can emerge from finding new and degenerate adaptive motor solutions. Generally speaking, we anticipate that in most cases, when exposed to variation in constraints, people are not looking for creative motor actions, but discover them while doing an effort to satisfy constraints. For future research, this paper achieves two important aspects: it delineates how adaptive (movement) variability is at the heart of (motor) creativity, and it sets out methodologies toward stimulating adaptive variability.

Analysis of Relations between Spatiotemporal Movement Regulation and Performance of Discrete Actions Reveals Functionality in Skilled Climbing

In this review of research on climbing expertise, we focus on different measures of climbing performance, including spatiotemporal measures related to fluency and activity states (i.e., discrete actions), adopted by climbers for achieving overall performance goals of getting to the end of a route efficiently and safely. Currently, a broad range of variables have been reported, however, many of these fail to capture how climbers adapt to a route whilst climbing. We argue that spatiotemporal measures should be considered concurrently with evaluation of activity states (such as reaching or exploring) in order gain a more comprehensive picture of how climbers successfully adapt to a route. Spatial and temporal movement measures taken at the hip are a traditional means of assessing efficiency of climbing behaviors. More recently, performatory and exploratory actions of the limbs have been used in combination with spatiotemporal indicators, highlighting the influence of limb states on climbing efficiency and skill transfer. However, only a few studies have attempted to combine spatiotemporal and activity state measures taken during route climbing. This review brings together existing approaches for observing climbing skill at performance outcome (i.e., spatiotemporal assessments) and process (i.e., limb activity states) levels of analysis. Skill level is associated with a spatially efficient route progression and lower levels of immobility. However, more difficult hold architecture designs require significantly greater mobility and more complex movement patterning to maintain performance. Different forms of functional, or goal-supportive, movement variability, including active recovery and hold exploration, have been implicated as important adaptations to physiological and environmental dynamics that emerge during the act of climbing. Indeed, recently it has also been shown that, when climbing on new routes, efficient exploration can improve the transfer of skill. This review provides new insights into how climbing performance and related actions can be quantified to better capture the functional role of movement variability.

Constraints representing a meta-stable régime facilitate exploration during practice and transfer of learning in a complex multi-articular task

Previous investigations have shown that inducing meta-stability in behavior can be achieved by overlapping affordances through constraint manipulation, allowing cooperative and competitive tendencies to functionally coexist. The purpose of this paper was to test a number of conditions applying these design principles on performance during skills practice and transfer. Of additional interest, was whether the existing skill level interacted with the environmental properties of the experimental tasks (varying indoor climbing routes). Two skill groups practised on three routes per session over four separate sessions. At the end of the final session, climbers undertook a transfer test. Routes, matched for difficulty, were manipulated in terms of hand-hold design. Route-1 and Route-2 were designed with holds with a single graspable edge, aligned entirely parallel or perpendicular to the ground plane respectively. Route-3 had at each hold, two graspable edges (one parallel and one perpendicular to the ground plane). Behavioral exploration at the hip and hands were largest under the metastable condition (Route-3). Skill level also interacted with route properties during practice and influenced transfer. Data suggest meta-stability induces exploratory behaviors. Less skilled individuals explore both hand and hip levels, whereas, more experienced climbers explore at the hip level.

Understanding constraints on sport performance from the complexity sciences paradigm: An ecological dynamics framework

Glazier's suggestion for the constraints-led approach as a GUT for sport performance is a worthy proposal. What is missing from these preliminary insights is a principled basis, in the form of pillars, for understanding the cornerstones of the sports medicine profession, and this lack of an overarching theoretical framework is also somewhat of a limitation in Glazier's initial ideas, as we argue later. Here we suggest that his preliminary proposal would benefit from considering a more comprehensive ontological positioning within the complexity sciences paradigm to benefit from conceptualising athletes and sports teams as complex adaptive systems. We argue that ecological dynamics provides a more encompassing rationale than the constraint-led approach because it is a multi-dimensional theoretical framework shaped by many relevant disciplines.

Role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and exploratory movements

This study examined the role of route previewing strategies on climbing fluency and on exploratory movements of the limbs, in order to understand whether previewing helps people to perceive and to realize affordances. Eight inexperienced and ten experienced climbers previewed a 10 m high route of 5b difficulty on French scale, then climbed it with a top-rope as fluently as possible. Gaze behavior was collected from an eye tracking system during the preview and allowed us to determine the number of times they scanned the route, and which of four route previewing strategies (fragmentary, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks) they used. Five inertial measurement units (IMU) (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer) were attached to the hip, both feet, and forearms to analyze the vertical acceleration and direction of each limb and hip during the ascent. We were able to detect movement and immobility phases of each IMU using segmentation and classification processes. Depending on whether the limbs and/or hip were moving, five states of behavior were detected: immobility, postural regulation, hold exploration, hold change, and hold traction. Using cluster analysis we identified four clusters of gaze behavior during route previewing depending on route preview duration, number of scan paths, fixations duration, ascending, zigzagging, and sequence-of-blocks strategies. The number of scan paths was positively correlated with relative duration of exploration and negatively correlated with relative duration of hold changes during the ascent. Additionally, a high relative duration of sequence-of-blocks strategy and zigzagging strategy were associated with a high relative duration of immobility during the ascent. Route previewing might help to pick up functional information about reachable, graspable, and usable holds, in order to chain movements together and to find the route. In other words, route previewing might contribute to perceiving and realizing nested affordances.

Adaptability of expert visual anticipation in baseball batting

By manipulating stimulus variation in terms of opponent pitcher actions, this study investigated the capability of expert (n = 30) and near-expert (n = 95) professional baseball batters to adapt anticipation skill when using the video simulation temporal occlusion paradigm. Participants watched in-game footage of two pitchers, one after the other, that was temporally occluded at ball release and various points during ball flight. They were required to make a written prediction of pitch types and locations. Per cent accuracy was calculated for pitch type, for pitch location, and for type and location combined. Results indicated that experts and near-experts could adapt their anticipation to predict above guessing level across both pitchers, but adaptation to the left-handed pitcher was poorer than the right-handed pitcher. Small-to-moderate effect sizes were found in terms of superior adaptation by experts over near-experts at the ball release and early ball flight occlusion conditions. The findings of this study extend theoretical and applied knowledge of expertise in striking sports. Practical application of the instruments and findings are discussed in terms of applied researchers, practitioners and high-performance staff in professional sporting organisations.